I cant believe it! It’s nearly the end of January – I started this so long ago and now its’s only 10 weeks before I depart for the North Pole to run, arguably the hardest Marathon on the planet and I’m only just starting to walk again after the knee op!!

In all my training so far the furthest I have run is still under 10 miles so the ‘scary factor’ is beginning to take hold however I am determined to see this through!

core exercise

Training is fascinating – core stability work and this incredibly tiring pool workout which I am now doing 5 days a week. This primarily involves running full tilt against a jet in the pool which I did previously but they have made it that much harder for me by making me wear a floatation device so that my feet cannot touch the bottom and I am now running against the jet, myself and severe exhaustion – I know it sounds ridiculous
but I have never done anything so hard (yet) in any training session I have undertaken in my youthful 58 years.

Anyway the good news is that as I am likely to lose upwards of 20 lbs whilst I am at the Pole so when it gets to March I will have to start stuffing myself with pasta and lots of chocolate – all Mars Bar donations gratefully received…!

Most importantly it looks like we have now found our causes that will be become my raison d’etre – will write all about that in the next week or so and no doubt quite a few of you will receive sponsorship requests for which I kind of apologise but not really as I am sure you will agree when you see why I am doing this ……